SOEP Research: Inequality and Mobility

The Minimum Wage and Fair Wage Perceptions

Whether workers feel they are paid fairly is an important determinant of their job satisfaction and productivity. Minimum wage laws aim for fairer wages for low-income workers. But, what are the impacts of minimum wage laws on workers’ fairness perceptions? Using survey data from German Socio-Economic Panel, we show that the introduction of minimum wage law in Germany increased the...

Do Demographics Prevent Consumption Aggregates from Reflecting Micro-Level Preferences?

Most simulated micro-founded macro models use solely consumer-demand aggregates in order to estimate preference parameters of a representative consumer, for use in policy evaluation. Focusing on dynamic models with time-separable preferences, we show that aggregation holds if, and only if, momentary utility functions fall in the Identical-Shape Harmonic Absolute-Risk Aversion (ISHARA) utility class, ...

Wage premia for skills: complementarity between cognitive and non-cognitive skills

Abstract:I present evidence on the association between individuals' cognitive abilities, personality traits, and earnings in Poland. I find that cognitive skills and certain personality traits are complements. In particular, I find that cognitive skills and emotional stability are complementary, with neurotic individuals having significantly lower returns to their cognitive skills....

Was Marx Right? Income Inequality, Market Concentration and Voting in late 19th Century Germany

The  recent  debate  on  the  causes  and  consequences  of  income  inequality shows striking similarity to the debate in many parts of Europe before 1914. Today and back then the focus was on the role of capital share and market concentration as a cause for rising inequality.  In this study we analyze the drivers and consequences of...

The Rich Are Different: Unravelling the Perceived and Self‐Reported Personality Profiles of High‐Net‐Worth Individuals

Beyond money and possessions, how are the rich different from the general population? Drawing on a unique sample of high‐net‐worth individuals from Germany (≥1 million Euro in financial assets; N = 130), nationally representative data (N = 22,981), and an additional online panel (N = 690), we provide the first direct investigation of the stereotypically perceived and self‐reported personality profiles ...

Comparing Survey Data and Administrative Records on Gross Earnings: Nonreporting, Misreporting, Interviewer Presence and Earnings Inequality

Research on earnings inequality mostly relies on survey data, but these data may not be accurate. Survey data on earnings might be biased as research indicates that some respondents are likely to avoid reporting their gross earnings and others are likely to misreport them. In addition, the mode of data collection might affect responses to sensitive questions such as those on earnings. Given these three ...

The Joint Distribution of Net Worth and Pension Wealth in Germany

The research on wealth inequality has generally focused on real and financial assets, while giving little attention to pension wealth: the present value of future pension entitlements from public and company pension schemes. This is surprising given the important role pension plans play in guaranteeing material security and well‐being for a majority of the population, and suggests that they should ...

The Roots of Inequality: Estimating Inequality of Opportunity from Regression Trees and Forests

Measuring Attitudes Toward Distributive Justice: The Basic Social Justice Orientations Scale

Previous research on social inequalities relied primarily on objective indicators. According to recent studies, however, subjective indicators that reflect a person’s perceptions and evaluations of inequalities are also relevant. Such evaluations depend on an individual’s normative orientation, so respective attitudes toward distributive justice need to be accounted for appropriately. This article ...

Parental Background Matters: Intergenerational Mobility and Assimilation of Italian Immigrants in Germany

We investigate the hypothesis of failed integration and low social mobility of immigrants. An intergenerational assimilation model is tested empirically on household survey data and validated against registry data provided by the Italian Embassy in Germany. Although we confirm substantial disparities between educational achievements of immigrants and natives, we find that the children of Italian immigrants ...